The other day, the almighty General Security Service (Shabak, formerly Shin Bet) needed a new boss. It is a hugely important job, because no minister ever dares to contradict the advice of the Shabak chief in cabinet meetings.

There was an obvious candidate, known only as J. But at the last moment, the settlers lobby was mobilized. As director of the Jewish department, J. had put some Jewish terrorists in prison. So his candidacy was rejected and Yoram Cohen, a kippah-wearing darling of the settlers, was appointed instead.

That happened last month. Just before that, the National Security Council also needed a new chief. Under pressure from the settlers, Gen. Yaakov Amidror, formerly the highest kippah-wearing officer in the army, a man of openly ultra-ultra nationalist views, got the job.

The deputy chief of staff of the army is a kippah-wearing officer dear to the settlers, a former head of Central Command, which includes the West Bank.

Some weeks ago, I wrote that the problem may not be the annexation of the West Bank by Israel, but the annexation of Israel by the West Bank settlers.

Some readers reacted with a chuckle. It looked like a humorous aside.

It was not.

The time has come to examine this process seriously: Is Israel falling victim to a hostile takeover by the settlers?

First of all, the term settlers itself must be examined.

Formally, there is no question. The settlers are Israelis living beyond the 1967 border, the Green Line. (Green in this case has no ideological connotation. This just happened to be the color chosen to distinguish the line on the maps.)

Numbers are inflated or deflated according to propaganda needs. But it can be assumed that there are about 300,000 settlers in the West Bank and an additional 200,000 or so in East Jerusalem. Israelis usually don't call the Jerusalemites settlers, putting them into a different category. But, of course, settlers they are.

But when we speak of Settlers in the political context, we speak of a much bigger community.

True, not all settlers are Settlers. Many people in the West Bank settlements went there without any ideological motive, just because they could build their dream villas for practically nothing, with a picturesque view of Arab minarets to boot. It is these the Settler Council chairman, Danny Dayan, meant, when, in a (recently leaked) secret conversation with a U.S. diplomat, he conceded that they could easily be persuaded to return to Israel if the money were right.

However, all these people have an interest in the status quo, and therefore will support the real Settlers in the political fight. As the Jewish proverb goes, if you start fulfilling a commandment for the wrong reasons, you will end up fulfilling it for the right ones.

But the camp of the settlers is much, much bigger.

The entire so-called national religious movement is in total support of the settlers, their ideology, and their aims. And no wonder the settlement enterprise sprung from its loins.

This must be explained. The national religious were originally a tiny splinter of religious Jewry. The big Orthodox camp saw in Zionism an aberration and heinous sin. Since God had exiled the Jews from His land because of their sins, only He through His Messiah had the right to bring them back. The Zionists thus position themselves above God and prevent the coming of the Messiah. For the Orthodox, the Zionist idea of a secular Jewish nation still is an abomination.

However, a few religious Jews did join the nascent Zionist movement. They remained a curiosity. The Zionists held the Jewish religion in contempt, like everything else belonging to the Jewish Diaspora (galut exile, a derogatory term in Zionist parlance). Children who (like myself) were brought up in Zionist schools in Palestine before the Holocaust were taught to look down with pity on people who were still religious.

This also colored our attitude toward the religious Zionists. The real work of building our future Hebrew State (we never spoke about a Jewish State) was done by socialist atheists. The kibbutzim and moshavim, communal and cooperative villages, as well as the pioneer youth movements, which were the foundation of the whole enterprise, were mostly Tolstoyan socialist, some of them even Marxist. The few that were religious were considered marginal.

At that time, in the 1930s and 1940s, few young people wore a kippah in public. I don't remember a single member of the Irgun, the clandestine military (terrorist) organization to which I belonged, wearing a kippah though there were quite a number of religious members. They preferred a less conspicuous cap or beret.

The national-religious party (originally called Mizrahi Eastern) played a minor role in Zionist politics. It was decidedly moderate in national affairs. In the historic confrontations between the activist David Ben-Gurion and the moderate Moshe Sharett in the 1950s, they almost always sided with Sharett, driving Ben-Gurion up the wall.

Nobody paid much attention, however, to what was happening under the surface in the national-religious youth movement, Bnei Akiva, and their Yeshivot. There, out of sight of the general public, a dangerous cocktail of ultra-nationalist Zionism and an aggressive tribal messianic religion was being brewed.

The astounding victory of the Israeli army in the 1967 Six-Day War, after three weeks of extreme anxiety, marked a turning point for this movement.

Here was everything they had dreamed of: a God-given miracle, the heartland of historical Eretz Israel (alias the West Bank) occupied, The Temple Mount is in our hands! as one general breathlessly reported.

As if somebody had drawn a cork, the national-religious youth movement escaped its bottle and became a national force. They created Gush Emunim (Bloc of the Faithful), the center of the dynamic settlement enterprise in the newly liberated territories.

This must be well understood: for the national-religious camp, 1967 was also a moment of liberation within the Zionist camp. As the Bible (Psalm 117) prophesied: The stone the builders despised has become the cornerstone. The despised national-religious youth movement and kibbutzim suddenly jumped to center stage.

While the old socialist kibbutz movement was dying of ideological exhaustion, its members becoming rich by selling agricultural land to real-estate sharks, the national religious sprang up in full ideological vigor, imbued with spiritual and national fervor, preaching a pagan Jewish creed of holy places, holy stones, and holy tombs, mixed with the conviction that the whole country belongs to the Jews and that foreigners (meaning the Palestinians, who have lived here for at least 1,300, if not 5,000 years) should be kicked out.

Most of today's Israelis were born or immigrated after 1967. The occupation state is the only reality they know. The settlers creed looks to them like self-evident truth. Polls show a growing number of young Israelis for whom democracy and human rights are empty phrases. A Jewish state means a state that belongs to the Jews and to the Jews only; nobody else has any business to be here.

This climate has created a political scene dominated by a set of right-wing parties, from Avigdor Lieberman's racists to the outright fascist followers of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane all of them totally subservient to the settlers.

If it is true that the U.S. Congress is controlled by the Israel lobby, then this lobby is controlled by the Israeli government, which is controlled by the settlers. (Like the joke about the dictator who said: The world is afraid of our country; the country is afraid of me; I am afraid of my wife; my wife is afraid of a mouse. So who rules the world?)

So the settlers can do whatever they want: build new settlements and enlarge existing ones, ignore the Supreme Court, give orders to the Knesset and the government, attack their neighbors whenever they like, kill Arab children who throw stones, uproot olive groves, burn mosques. And their power is growing by leaps and bounds.

The takeover of a civilized country by hardier border fighters is by no means extraordinary. On the contrary, it is a frequent historical phenomenon. The historian Arnold Toynbee provided a long list.

Germany was for a long time dominated by the Ostmark (Eastern marches), which became Austria. The culturally advanced German heartland fell under the sway of the more primitive but hardier Prussians, whose homeland was not a part of Germany at all. The Russian Empire was formed by Moscow, originally a primitive town on the fringes.

The rule seems to be that when the people of a civilized country become spoiled by culture and riches, a hardier, less pampered, and more primitive race on the fringes takes over, as Greece was taken over by the Romans, and Rome by the barbarians.

This can happen to us. But it need not. Israeli secular democracy still has a lot of strength in it. The settlements can still be removed. (In a future article, I shall try to show how.) The religious Right can still be repulsed. The occupation, which is the mother of all evil, can still be terminated.

But for that we have to recognize the danger and do something about it.

Citizens living in 'danger regions' to receive preference in gun license issuance procedures; danger zone includes West Bank and a number of towns and communities along the Green Line. A new policy formulated in recent weeks by the Public Security Ministry will give settlers preference in gun licensing procedures.

Public Security Ministry officials, policemen and others have in recent days reviewed lists of persons seeking gun permits. Under the new guidelines, citizens who live in places defined by security officials as danger regions will receive preference in gun license issuance procedures.

This danger zone designation extends to the entirety of the West Bank, along with a number of towns and communities along the Green Line that either border Palestinian villages and towns, or lack adequate defenses.

Explaining the policy, security officials say that "when a citizen lives in an endangered region, the treatment of the request cannot be the same as the case of other citizens - preference will be given to such requests, and the review of the requests will be expedited. Responses will be given, first of all, to requests that come from residents who live in danger regions; and this is unlike the situation in the past, when requests were handled according to the order in which they came, and no preference was given."

During meetings of Knesset committees held last February, settler representatives argued that under current circumstances several Israeli citizens in Judea and Samaria with criminal records can't get guns for self protection.

Orit Struck, a settler activist, attacked the government firearm permit policy. The government, she charged, "has created a situation in which every other citizen in Judea and Samaria has a criminal record for some nonsensical offense" and can therefore not own a firearm.

Police Brig. Gen. Meir Ben Yishai responded that "if someone throws a stone at a demonstration that does not suffice as a reason to disqualify a firearm request - we do not deny permits on those grounds, and I say that responsibly."

Over the last year, responsibility for firearm licenses has been relayed from the Interior Ministry to the Public Security Ministry. Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch has stated in the Knesset that one of his goals is to reduce the number of firearms held illegally by citizens.

Israel's Public Security Ministry, after weeks of crafting a new
policy on the issue, has decided to give preference to settlers in gun
licensing.

The justification of the move is that any citizen
living in a "danger zone" must receive preference from ther state in
request of security measures.

The entire West Bank, along
with a number of towns and communities along the Green Line, falls
under the blanket of the term "danger zone." These are clearly marked
as towns and settlements that either border Palestinian villages and
towns.

Israeli Media reports that security officials have
stated that, "when a citizen lives in an endangered region, the
treatment of the request cannot be the same as the case of other
citizens," and that, "this is unlike the situation in the past, when
requests were handled according to the order in which they came, and no
preference was given."

A thousand US Christians want to join IDF, set up communities beyond Green Line.

Will US Christians settle in Samaria? About 1,000 Americans have signed a document requesting to convert to Judaism, move to Israel, and settle in Samaria.

The group members are seeking to serve in the IDF and later establish communities based on the Kibbutz movement model.

The document was presented to Yisrael Beiteinu Knesset Member Lia Shemtov, who met with the group's representative last week and promised to offer her help in facilitating the initiative.

The Christian group's representative, Baruch Abramovich, said he was hopeful that MK Shemtov would be able to elicit the government's support for the initiative.

Ironically, the venture received a boost through the help of priests at some 70 different churches in the US, who last summer urged their followers to boycott Abramovich and his new community. The broad media coverage attracted many new participants to the initiative.

The Christian group seeks to purchase land in Samaria, and Abramovich says that in Missouri alone a community of some 400 people is already keeping the Shabbat.

"They manage collective kibbutz life and aspire to create such community in Samaria, or in any area that would like to absorb people who truly love Israel and the Jewish religion," he said.

MK Shemtov expressed her support for the idea, noting that "bringing hundreds of educated, established people to Israel will help in developing Samaria and reinforcing it as an inseparable part of the State of Israel. We are dealing with people who wish to undergo Orthodox conversion, contribute to the economy, and even to serve in the IDF."

Officials at the Samaria Regional council confirmed that they were approached about the initiative, but noted that according to the Law of Return, only Jews can move to Israel and receive citizenship.

"If families from this group undergo proper conversion and move to Israel in line with the Law of Return, we'll of course be happy to welcome them in Samaria," one official said.

The majority of those arrests took place in Jerusalem province, where the IOF arrested five Palestinians, among them two children and a minor, sources said. Arrests were also reported in the provinces of Nablus, Al-Khalil, and Bethlehem.

Among those arrested was a 61-year-old man while he was near his home near the Kiryat Arba settlement east of Al-Khalil city.

The same morning medics said a Jewish settler deliberately ran over a five-year-old Palestinian girl with a motorcycle and fled the scene in the Tel Rumeida district in Al-Khalil.

The girl was left with minor fractures and bruises, the medics said. She was transported to the hospital for treatment.

Palestinian villager Ibrahaim Salah faced a rude
welcome after arriving at his olive grove Tuesday, claiming that his
trees were cut down by settlers.

"I arrived at my land
Tuesday morning and couldn't believe my eyes," said the Samaria
resident, who is allowed to access his grove only a few times a year
with a security escort. "We found some 150 olive trees that are dozens
of years old cut down."

Salah says that only 60 trees remain
in his plot of land at this time, yet most of them are too young and
do not produce commercial quantities of trees.

"I don't know
what to do now. I have nothing except for these trees," he said. Salah
added that a caravan belonging to the nearby Havat Gilad outpost was
placed by his cut down trees.

"When we arrived, we saw the
settlers standing on a hill far away and looking at us. When the
police saw them, they decided that we cannot work the land, claiming
there were insufficient forces to secure us," the Palestinian farmer
said. "I intend to file a police complaint next week over what was
done to me, but I don't have high expectations, because in all the
previous times I complained about abuse, nothing was done."

Civil Administration officials confirmed the details of the story and
said they photographed the cut down trees and informed the farmer about
his right to file a police complaint.

However, one of the founders of Havat Gilad, Itay Zar, said the plot of land is part of a disputed area.

"These are trees we've been working in the past 10 years, and only
recently a Palestinian who is unwilling to tell us his name claimed the
area belongs to him," Zar said. "There are some 20-30 trees in the
grove, certainly not 150. Besides, the trees were trimmed, not uprooted,
and we didn't do it."

"There are laws in this country, and
it can't be that a nameless Palestinian suddenly arrives and claims
that land I've been working for years and trees I've been growing
belong to him," Zar said.

Jewish settlers on Monday attacked the Palestinian village of Beit Ummar in Al-Khalil and destroyed 45 fruitful olive trees under protection of the Israeli occupation forces (IOF), local sources reported.

Mohammed Awad, the spokesman for the national anti wall and settlement committee in the town, said that the settlers came from the Beit Ayan settlement north of Beit Ummar and attacked four areas.

He explained that the settlers assaulted Palestinian farmers, prevented them from tending to their land, and uprooted the 45 olive trees after which the IOF declared those areas closed military zones.

At 8.30am yesterday morning around fifty settlers, some masked and armed with guns, descended from Yitzhar settlement onto the Palestinian village of Assira Al Qibliya. International observers from the UK and Ireland witnessed the settlers threw rocks at homes and people on the outskirts of the village injuring one local, who is being treated in hospital.

Within thirty minutes an army jeep carrying Israeli soldiers arrived. They stood in front of the settlers on the hillside approximately one hundred metres from the Palestinian homes yet did nothing to prevent their attacks. The soldiers could be seen firing guns into the air and directly towards the Palestinians who had come out of their homes to witness and document this attack on their village.

During the attack four settlers broke away from the main group and made their way to a Palestinian quarry. Two armed with machine guns stood on a ledge while two descended onto the side of the road and set fire to a car used by the Palestinian workers.

The settlement of Yitzhar was originally established as a military outpost in 1983 but demilitarised and turned over to residential purposes a year later. Yitzhar is home to a Jewish orthodox community of over 100 who have in the past decade attacked the residents and properties of Assira Al Qibliya and neighbouring villages on numerous occasions using rocks, knives, guns and arson. These attacks often happen on Saturdays, the religious holiday of Shabbat.

Yitzhar is home to Rabbi Elitzur who published a book last November entitled The Handbook for the Killing of Gentiles, condoning the murder of non-Jewish babies, lest they grow to be dangerous like their parents. Rabbi Elitzur is vocal in his encouragement of operations of reciprocal responsibility such as the arson attack made on Yasuf mosque in December 2009

Despite West Banks settlements status as illegal under international law, Yitzhar was included in the Israeli governments 2009 national priority map as one of the settlements earmarked for financial support. Yitzhar also receives significant funding from American donations, tax-deductible under U.S. government tax breaks for charitable institutions.

Two incidents of Israeli settler violence were reported Saturday morning, with Urif residents waking to find a torched car and Asira villagers saying settlers entered the area and provoked a clash.

Fatah official charged with monitoring settlement activity in the northern West Bank Ghassan Doughlas told Ma'an that locals believed residents of the illegal Yitzhar settlement were behind a provocation near the village.

Locals said settlers entered the area, approaching and verbally harassing shepherds on the outskirts of the village. Locals came to the aid of the shepherds, clashing with the group of settlers.

In the village of Urif, Doughlas said local resident Ali Issa awoke to a burned out car, which witnesses said was torched by settlers.

Doughlas demanded the quartet and the international community intervene to stop settler attacks against Palestinians.

Progressively overwhelming waves of settler attacks have subsided in recent weeks, falling back to average levels of vandalism and harassment, which remain a constant threat to Palestinians, particularly in the northern West Bank region of Nablus, and in the Hebron region.

Between the end of February and the third week of March, seven Palestinians were injured by settler gunfire, two were stabbed, two were beaten, seven were injured by stones, at least six cars were torched, and dozens of acts of vandalism and harassment reported.

An escalation in violent attacks began after the Israeli government dismantled an illegal settlement outpost on February 28. Under a professed "price tag" policy, settlers make Palestinians "pay" for each evacuation of outposts. In the past, the "price" has included arson, shootings, beatings, burning fields, uprooting trees and poisoning water wells belonging to Palestinians.

Harassment and vandalism escalated further following the murder of five residents of Itamar settlement by unknown attackers on March 11. But many of the incidents causing hospitalization occurred before.

Settlement security prevents farmers from accessing lands

Farmers from Deir Istiya west of Salfit said a guard at the Nofim settlement prevented them from reaching agricultural lands in Khirbet Shuhada on Saturday morning, adding that they feared new construction in the settlement would mean their lands would be confiscated for the expansion.

Samih Salman, 45, told Ma'an that while he was on his way to the lands, an Israeli jeep marked "security" approached him, took down his identity card number and turned him away from the area, saying access was prohibited.

Mayor of Deir Istiya, Nathmi Salman, said the incident was worrying, following Israel's announcement of another 942 settlement units set for construction in the West Bank.

Salman explained that much of the village's land had already been confiscated when the Hava Ba'er outpost was built, adding that the outpost also saw the closure of the main road to farming land belonging to the villagers, forcing farmers to take a long bypass route.

In December 2008, Dayan and other settler leaders took part in a meeting with the U.S. consul general in Jerusalem, Jacob Walles. The meeting was attended by Haetzni and Shaul Goldstein, the chairman of the Gush Etzion regional council. The leaders discussed the growing settler violence against Palestinians.

At the start of the meeting, Dayan said the violence was the direct result of Israel's unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip as well as "outrageous" rulings by the Supreme Court.

The Israeli government's decision to remove residents from their homes in the Gaza Strip taught young settlers that "you can't play by the rules because the opponent will change them at the last minute," Dayan is quoted as saying.

The Yesha chief added that the disengagement was a "disaster" for Israel. During another conversation with diplomats, the contents of which will be revealed in tomorrow's edition of Haaretz Week's End, Dayan criticized his fellow Yesha leaders.

Like many other notables and public officials on both the right and left, Dayan has met many times with U.S. diplomats for background discussions. These sit-downs let the Americans get a better sense of the mood in the West Bank.

Summaries of these meetings was cabled by the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv to the State Department in Washington. Sometimes, they were also sent to other foreign officials. These cables were included in the batch of 250,000 documents that were initially obtained by the WikiLeaks website. Recently, copies of them were received by Haaretz.

A conversation between Dayan and U.S. officials in May 2009 revealed the difference in the settler leader's tone when speaking with people outside his constituency. Just days after security forces evacuated frefab housing in the outpost of Maoz Esther near Ramallah, Dayan told the Americans: "As long as the [Defense Ministry] only dismantles outposts like Maoz Esther, we're really not concerned - yet."

But in an interview with a media outlet at around the same time, Dayan presented an altogether different line of argument. "If the government acts in such a one-sided and aggressive manner, the grave results that will stem from this will be on its account," he said. "It is inconceivable that the Netanyahu government not only denies its obligation to build, but also destroys settlements .... The government knows very well that the outposts were built by the Likud-led governments. The government built homes, and even sold them to settlers for money."

Dayan's view on the evacuation of isolated outposts during his talks with the Americans contradicts his statements to news organization Arutz 7 when he was elected Yesha leader. "We are saying this in the plainest terms possible," he said. "Any attempt to evacuate even one prefab home must be met with massive, determined resistance from our side. We must rejuvenate our ties with the settlements and bring masses of people everywhere .... We are certainly calling on the [West Bank] residents to oppose in the manner that we know."

Another time, when Dayan was asked by U.S. officials how he envisioned future relations between Israel and the Palestinians, he was pessimistic.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a "situation without a solution," Dayan said in a meeting with U.S. diplomats on December 11, 2008. The settler leader rejected out of hand any possibility that a two-state solution would be implemented.

Dayan said that "the Gaza experience killed the two-state solution ... It's a shame they've taken the land and used it as a launching pad against Israel rather than building a state."

"The creation of a Palestinian state now will mean the end of Israel," he later added.

Dayan, 56, does not have a typical settler background. He is from a secular family, an economist and a high-tech professional who joined the settler movement after growing up in Tel Aviv. His brother, Aryeh Dayan, is a journalist and former Haaretz reporter. Aryeh also worked for the newspapers Kol Ha'ir and Davar. Dayan is also the cousin of newswoman Ilana Dayan.

Dayan twice ran for a Knesset seat as part of the right-wing Tehiya party, without success. During the last parliamentary elections, he was slotted eighth in the list for religious Zionist party Habayit Hayehudi, but ultimately he quit the race. Toward the end of 2006, Dayan joined the Yesha Council. The next year he was elected chairman.

According to secret American diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks, chairman of settlements council told U.S. Embassy officials in Israel he 'understands the Palestinians.'

Danny Dayan, the chairman of the Yesha Council of West Bank settlements, told U.S. officials that some settlers would be willing to move to Israel proper in exchange for financial compensation, according to confidential State Department cables obtained by WikiLeaks.

Dayan also said he was opposed to some of the tactics employed by Israeli settlers and that he was in favor of removing roadblocks and checkpoints to ease conditions for the Palestinians.

His statements, which were made in closed-door meetings with U.S. diplomats in Israel in recent years, came in response to questions about a potential evacuation-compensation bill in the Knesset. When asked about the issue, Dayan replied: "I'm an economist, and I know that some people will take it if the price is right."

Dayan also told U.S. Embassy officials that he was aware of the Palestinians' attachment to the West Bank. He acknowledged that he was "shamed and embarrassed" by the desecration of Palestinian mosques and the vandalism of Muslim gravestones. Dayan added that settlers were guilty of "morally horrific" things, including attacks on Palestinian property as retribution for Israeli government efforts to rein in settlement construction, also known as the "price tag" policy.

The WikiLeaks cables report that Dayan told the U.S. officials that this policy was "a mistake that will not serve the interests of the settlement movement."

According to the documents, Dayan's sentiments were echoed by Elyakim Haetzni, a founder of the Yesha Council. Haetzni expressed concern that settler rabbis were not doing enough to dissuade the so-called hilltop youth in the West Bank from harming Palestinians.

Dayan also supported the removal of checkpoints and roadblocks in the West Bank so Palestinians could enjoy greater economic prosperity and human rights. During one meeting with U.S. diplomats, Dayan said he was "deeply attached" to the West Bank, adding that the settlers had a "moral right" to settle there. Dayan said he understood why the Palestinians felt a similar tie to the land.

Israeli forces bulldozed 80 dunams of grapes planted by settlers on land belonging to the Palestinian village of Susiya in the southern West Bank Wednesday morning.

Landowner Jamil Hoshieh told Ma'an a settler from the nearby illegal settlement Suseya, Moyshele Deutsch, took the land four years ago, and planted a vineyard. Hoshieh petitioned Israeli courts to retrieve the land, and a year later the Supreme Court ruled in their favor.

The Construction reported into today's Israeli media refers to 4 settlements (Rotem, Eshkolot-Sansana, Halamish-Neve Zuf and Kiryat Netafim) in which construction was already taking place and/or completed without any relevant permits or authorization.

Today Defense Minister Barak authorized retroactively these construction sites by publishing development plans for each and every one.

Two of these settlements were ordered by the court to halt construction (Halamish and Kiryat Netafim), after Peace Now appealed the courts with evidence of absence of development plans.

We will now have to study these plans carefully to check whether they include only the already completed/constructing units or also include a widening of each settlement with authorization for further growth and extension of settlement perimeters.

Once again the government is capitulating to settler pressure, ignoring international relations and Palestinian rights.

Barak's message to the settlers is clear - they can continue to construct illegally and sometime down the line, whether it be 5 or 10 years later, eventually their construction will be authorized..

Jewish fanatics beat up a Palestinian youth west of occupied Jerusalem on Sunday morning.

Mother of Saeed Al-Maghribi said that her son was the victim of a "brutal, racial" battering at the hands of a group of Jewish fanatics.

She quoted her son as saying that while on his way to work in western Jerusalem a Jew came up to him and asked him about a street and when he was sure that he was Palestinian he gave a signal to his friends who ganged up on him.

The mother said that her son fainted after they beat him using batons and sharp tools and woke up to find himself in an ambulance. He was hospitalized with moderate wounds, she said.

Jewish fanatics every now and then attack Palestinian Jerusalemites in cases that are usually reported against anonymous by the Israeli police.

A Palestinian man sustained fractures in his shin and arm after Jewish
settlers brutally assaulted him Sunday night near the Maale Ephraim
settlement east of Nablus city.

The victim Emad Hosni Salahat, 47, was transported to the Rafidya Hospital in Nablus following the attack.

Separately, other settlers have destroyed a water spring in the village of Madama south of Nablus, locals reported.

Some twenty settlers broke the pipes supplying the village with water Sunday afternoon, witnesses from the village said.

The Israeli occupation army arrived after the saboteurs had withdrawn.

The same day, settlers were seen leveling land and digging on private
property in the village of Massha, Salfit province, as they paved the
way to expand the nearby Eits Ephraim settlement.

The digging
took place in an area known as Bat Abu Erzeq west of the town and
covered more than 100,000 sq meters, Massha mayor Nidal Amir said.

Settlers have taken 95 per cent of the village's land since the
separation wall was erected in 2004, as settlers began building roads
linking isolated settlement communities, turning the village into an
isolated locality.

Tens of Jewish settlers assaulted Palestinian citizens and damaged land and crops to the east of Yatta village, in Al-Khalil, local sources reported on Saturday.

Coordinator of the popular anti wall and settlements committee Azmi Al-Shiyukhi said in a press release that Israeli occupation soldiers escorted the settlers during the attack.

He said that the settlers opened the way for a large number of their sheep into the Palestinian farmers' land, which caused big damage to the trees and crops.

Shiyukhi called for providing protection and support for Palestinian farmers east of Yatta and Al-Khalil villages in general in face of the Jewish settlers constant and systematic attacks on them and their land and property.

Israeli settlers guarded by the army vandalized lands and crops of residents east of Yatta in the West Bank district of Hebron on Saturday, activists said.

Rateb Al-Jbur, coordinator of the local committee against the wall and settlements in eastern Hebron, said settlers clashed with residents when they guided away sheep belonging to residents and vandalized crops and trees.

A group of Palestinian youth said they were attacked by Israeli soldiers while planting olive trees on Wednesday.

Around 30 young men and women from a group "Ihna Gheir" (We are different) planted around 100 olive trees in A'bud village north west of Ramallah to commemorate Land Day.

One of the participants told Ma'an that Israeli military jeeps raided the area and threatened the group. The soldiers were followed by a group of settlers, who uprooted the trees, and two Palestinians were injured in ensuing clashes.

The Palestinian youth said they moved to another area to continue planting the trees.

An Israeli military spokesman said he would look into the report.

Land Day commemorates mass protests against Israel's confiscation of Palestinian land in 1976. Israeli forces brutally quashed the demonstrations, killing six Palestinians and injuring over 100.

Israeli forces on Saturday erected several military checkpoints on the road to Wadi Qana south of Nablus in the northern West Bank, denying local farmers access to their fields in the area.

Meanwhile, 13 busloads of Israeli settlers from the nearby Alfe Menashe and Qarne Shomron settlements were escorted to the Wadi Qana valley by heavy police and military forces.

The mayor of Deir Istiya, Nathmi Salman, said he was denied access to Wadi Qana at gun point and was told the area was a "closed military zone."

He said that Palestinian farmers had gathered in a building near Wadi Qana and an Israeli military jeep was stationed there preventing them from leaving.

An Israeli military spokesman said he was not aware of any unusual activity in the area.

Wadi Qana provides the main source of income for many Palestinian farmers, but they have been denied access to their fields by Israeli forces several times before. Meanwhile, extremist settlers frequently attack shepherds and uproot fields in the area.

In 2010, Israeli forces demolished an agricultural project funded by the Palestinian Authority's Ministry of Finance in Wadi Qana.

Clashes erupted Friday between Palestinians and settlers near the Netzer settlement in Gush Etzion. The settlers claimed that Palestinians attacked a friend of theirs while he was working in the field and injured him.